ORPHEUS
Graphic Novella • Tapestry Collage
The ORPHEUS tapestries were commissioned by the DIVA Artist in residence initiative at Electric Picnic 2017.
The project was adapted from an original series of drawings inspired by the unique pathos and abject tranquillity of a dead mouse. Soon the delicate melancholy of the mouse became the more sinister and morose charm of a rat. For me, the rat took command of any stage I gave it, but any scene or monologue I composed for him was too uncooperative, it lacked the epic, and so ORPHEUS happened.
In collaboration with Alan Meredith (La biennale di Venezia, 2018), the installation stitched the textile collages into the backdrop of the festival and the distant throbbing lights in the dark became an extension of the work. Legible from all points around the circular sequence, the installation functioned as a working roundabout in the festival, achieving a paradox oscillating between structure and enclosure, the ephemeral and the perpetual.
